


Romantic at Heart

by Depths



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending, Grief/Mourning, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Unrequited Love, due to being dead, it just doesnt work, well a lil comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Depths/pseuds/Depths
Summary: Deuce goes to visit his favorite person in the world.
Relationships: Masked Deuce/Portgas D. Ace
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	Romantic at Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chromi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromi/gifts).



> haha, hey

At heart, Deuce was a romantic. 

He loved a good ending. Loved sunlight and moonlight and the way they could make the waves glitter. Loved calling the sound of seabirds music, loved the rhythmic push and pull of the old wood under his soles. He loved to  _ love. _

No writer escaped being a romantic. Frankly, in Deuce's opinion, most pirates couldn’t escape that either. 

Romance, for Deuce, ended when he left Marineford behind without his heart. 

“He’s gone,” Marco had whispered. Had tried to convince him, voice reedy and windswept as a ghost. “You have to accept that he’s gone.” 

What a liar. What a fucking  _ hypocrite— _

Deuce had grit his teeth so hard his jaw cracked. He clenched his fists, and looked down, and focused on his breathing until Marco gave up and left. 

A hypocrite indeed. What a family this was. 

He had been right, as he always was when Ace chose to make terrible decisions. Deuce should have never let Ace— should  _ never _ have— 

_ He was happy, _ Deuce's brain whispered weakly, trying to ease something, anything. 

**_was,_ ** his heart snarled. 

Deuce made a wounded sound and curled up where he stood. Immediately, Mihar was at his side. At least his crew was still here. At least  _ his _ family had stuck together. As much as they could, without their glue. Without their...

_ I will never call another person my captain, D _ euce decided viciously, hands stinging with the urge to tear something apart,  _ I'd sooner— _

Coarse hands pried his own open. Deuce carefully met Mihar’s eyes and did his best to smile. “Sorry,” he managed, “I'm okay. Just give me a moment.” A long moment. A moment enough to stop feeling so strangled. A moment enough to encompass the months, the weeks, the milliseconds since his captain was taken from him— enough to cover up for the way his throat had refused to loosen since his heart flickered out. 

“Do you need more tea?” Saber asked quietly. Deuce didn’t bother to answer, hands already fumbling to try and wrap around the chipped mug being pressed into his hands. “Here, here, drink it— you said it helped last time right?” 

_ No. _

Deuce took a sip. His throat burned raw like lava over open wounds  _ (like lava over dirtied skin—) _ “yeah,” he finally rasped out. “Yeah, it helps.” 

Hands so rough had no business being deceptively gentle. Not on Deuce. Not on a coward and failure of a first mate. Not when the last man Deuce allowed so close— not when Deuce had let Ace go, willingly let his captain, his savior,  _ his partner, his friend, his— _ Whatever showed on his face made his crew take a delicate step back. Deuce tightened his grip around the mug just to feel it burn and bit an apology through his lips. 

There were hints better left kept behind the thin wall of his teeth. Nothing but a little nerve and enamel to hold back what he really felt, right? 

Ace would have laughed at that. Deuce's throat burned hotter without taking a single sip. 

“...We’ll be there soon,” Mihar promised. So uncharacteristically delicate. They all were, when faced with this new Deuce. Hell, faced with a new  _ future. _ None of them were meant to function without Ace. “We— you can see him soon.” 

They had left Marineford without a trace of their captain. All Deuce had left of a soul was a knife, a hat, a scattered handful of beads as red as spilled blood and cooling lava. 

He hadn’t been the one to collect them. He had been too busy  _ running.  _

Deuce took a long drink, trying to savor the heat of the tea before it cooled. The burn was still familiar, down his throat. It’d be even more familiar if he spilled it over his hands. Skin red and blistering, warm with recognition. 

It was hard not to snap at his Nakama to leave him alone. They wouldn’t listen anyway. Assholes. 

_ (Our friends, our family— Deuce, these will be our new Nakama forever—)  _

The ship couldn’t possibly go any slower. 

They were lucky to have one in the first place. Deuce had no right to be upset with it; the Whitebeards hadn’t needed to give them one at all. Marco hadn’t needed to arrange for their split away, hadn’t needed to help them like this. They didn’t have the Piece of Spadille  _ or _ the Moby Dick anymore, after all. With resources stretched thin it must have been hard for the Phoenix to give them anything. 

Especially for a crew, for crewmates that weren’t technically his. They had agreed to assimilate but they were not  _ Whitebeards. _ They never had been. 

They were and would always be Spades  _ first _ . Not even death could take that. Not even Ace’s death could take that. 

Someone shook him and he startled hard enough to splash tea on himself. The chill of it nearly made him drop his mug. When had it gotten so cold? 

Deuce looked up and stared at the familiar green grass. “We’re here,” someone said. It didn’t matter who. He had stopped registering sound the moment he saw it. Deuce took a shaky step forward, barely aware of the blanket slipping off his shoulders and pooling at his feet. 

_ My captain is up there.  _

The ache in his chest, behind his eyes, in this throat, was becoming uncontrollable. 

_ My captain is up there.  _

All writers were romantics. All pirates were dreamers. Deuce had grown up enough in a handful of months to know better. 

He couldn’t help himself. 

_ My captain is here. _

Deuce fell to his knees at Ace's grave and choked up more petals than he thought were even left by the headstones. 

_ “Deu—!”  _

Had his crew ran up after him? Had  _ Deuce _ ran? He couldn’t remember– not that it made a difference. It didn’t matter if anyone saw him now. It wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t  _ stop. _ Whole hibiscus, stems wet with blood. Petals crumpled and ripped and stuck between his teeth. 

_ “Deuce?! You didn’t— why didn’t you—“ _

His body was falling apart. _ “I’m in love with you,” _ Deuce sobbed to the grave. His fingers tore into the grass below Ace’s name. The familiar scrawl that made up his captain, his partner, his lover's name. The same curled letters he wrote every night. The ones he had always written. The ones Ace never knew about.  _ “Please, I’ve always—“  _

Hands yanked at his shoulders. It didn’t matter— blood was dripping down his lips. It wasn’t hard to think that even seeing Ace’s grave would accelerate him, when just writing what he remembered decorated his cabin. 

_ “Deuce! Snap out of it, you have to—“ _

Deuce curled in on himself, screaming as fire blazed through his flesh. Rooted in his heart, nothing short of a bonfire would burn them out now. No scalpel would be able to take Ace from him. He had made sure of it. 

It hurt. 

_ So had leaving Ace behind. _

There was no breathing around the final blooming to even cough them up. Deuce swore he could feel the petals crawling up from under his skin. If his crew was still screaming Deuce was deaf to them. He quietly hoped they’d be fine. He quietly hoped— 

_ I hope I get buried with you _ . 

Deuce's eyes rolled back, the final hibiscus flowers red as coral and bright as blood where they sat barely peeking out from between grit teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in like 15-20 minutes. its 5:20 am and i can t believe i m struglging so much to write my final research paper but i can write gay angst for a pairing i dont even HAVE
> 
> an y way
> 
> love u chromi. ✌️ u my only hoe
> 
> Edit— once again forgot: As always, you can find me over at my tumblr, [Leviathiane](https://leviathiane.tumblr.com/)


End file.
